During the early years of the Reformation Luther and the others \nproposed again and again that a general council of the church be \nconvened. This council would discuss the questions of doctrine and \npractice which divided the Roman and Evangelical (Lutheran) churches. \nPope Paul III called a council in June, 1536, to meet the the following \nMay in Mantua.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although the council did not actually take place until 1545 in Trent,\n the call for a council meant the Lutherans had to examine their beliefs\n again. Even though Luther had desired a council, by this time the \nsituation had changed. The two sides had become farther apart. Also, \nsince 1530 the Romans had time and again refused to discuss doctrine \nwith the Evangelicals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In December, 1536, the elector of Saxony directed Luther to prepare a\n statement indicating the articles of faith in which concessions might \nbe made for the sake of peace. He was also directed to indicate the \narticles in which no compromise could be made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Luther immediately went to work and finished by December 28. A small \ngroup of theologians met in Wittenberg and reviewed Luther\u2019s work. Among\n the proposed changes was the section on the invocation of saints. At \nthis time the first eight people signed this confession.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The elector of Saxony then took the Articles to Smalcald. On February\n 8, 1537, the Smalcald League met in hopes of having the document \nadopted. This hope was not realized, however, partly because Luther was \nill and unable to attend the meetings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although not officially adopted by the Smalcald League, many theologians and clergymen signed the Articles because they agreed with Luther\u2019s writing. Finally the articles were accepted by the Lutheran church and incorporated in the Book of Concord which was published in 1580.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Text of the Smalcald Articles<\/a> in a new window.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What we believe: Smalcald Articles During the early years of the Reformation Luther and the others proposed again and again that a general council of the church be convened. This … Continue reading “Smalcald Articles”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":91,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-123","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/trinityslayton.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/trinityslayton.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/trinityslayton.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trinityslayton.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trinityslayton.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/trinityslayton.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":321,"href":"http:\/\/trinityslayton.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/123\/revisions\/321"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trinityslayton.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/91"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/trinityslayton.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}